The End of the Cowboy Era

The Bush Doctrine – "The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to
acquire the world's worst weapons" – is being defied by Iran's Ahmadinejad
and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, with impunity.

The White House seems to have lost interest in its democracy crusade, after
free elections advanced the prospects of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah
in Lebanon, and Hamas on the West Bank. In Ukraine, the victors of the Orange
Revolution have made a mess of things, and the pro-Putin forces are making a
comeback

Neither the Afghan war, in its fifth year, nor the Iraq war, in its fourth,
goes well. U.S. casualties are not falling, while the death toll among Afghans
and Iraqis mounts toward levels where they may have to be described as not simply
insurgencies, but civil wars.

America is a spectator in the Palestinian conflict, wringing its hands,
but backing Israel as she seeks to starve to death a Hamas that came to power
in elections Bush himself sponsored.

What has happened? What has rendered impotent the robust cowboy diplomacy of
George W. Bush, a policy of preemptive strikes and preventive wars, of crusades
for global democracy and ridding the world of tyrants, a policy declared in
his "axis-of-evil" address and Second Inaugural?

Answer: Bush has run up against the limits of power. Strong as our military
may be, it is but one-tenth of the size of the U.S forces that conquered Germany
and Japan. U.S. air and missile power, and U.S. special forces guiding warlord
armies, can knock over a Taliban regime, with few losses. U.S. armored divisions,
backed by unrivaled air and missile power, can roll over an Iraqi army and unhorse
an Iraqi regime.

But building a nation is another matter. As the French learned in the Ruhr
in 1923, "you cannot dig coal with bayonets," Americans are discovering you
cannot build a democratic nation on Islamic soil in Texas-sized nations like
Iraq and Afghanistan without a massive, long-term occupation, if a slice of
the population looks upon the regime you support as a sock puppet of American
imperialism.

Why has Bush decided diplomacy is the better part of valor in dealing with
Iran and North Korea? Consider the alternative.

Pyongyang is a formidable power with a million-man army and 11,000 artillery
pieces on the DMZ. Iran is three times as populous and four times the size of
Iraq. Should Bush attack either, he could end his term with U.S. forces fighting
three major wars.

But if the military option carries too many risks, multilateral diplomacy appears
to offer little hope. China and Russia will veto any tough UN sanctions on Iran
or North Korea. They have no desire to pull America's chestnuts out of the fire.
Is the United States, then, "the pitiful, helpless giant" Nixon warned we could
become?

By no means. Though the neocon bombast about our being "the unipolar power,"
the "indispensable nation," "the benevolent global hegemon" was always fatuous,
America remains the first military, economic, cultural, and political force
on the planet. We are simply not omnipotent – indeed, far from it, as always

What is needed is fresh thought on foreign policy now that Cowboy Diplomacy
is being abandoned by Bush. We are at what Walter Lippmann called a "plastic
moment," when a new foreign policy can be imposed to meet a changed world. And
the place to begin is by returning to basics. What are the vital interests of
the United States, and who threatens them?

On the terrorism front, the president has done well. Since 9/11, 85,000 Americans
have been murdered, but not one due to a terrorist attack. While we need to
be vigilant, there is no need to frighten ourselves to death over terrorism.
We are all going to die, but few of us by terrorist attack.

As we cannot ensure Iran and North Korea are free of nukes without invading,
and we are not going to invade, we should put both on notice, as we did Moscow
in the missile crisis, that if any WMD used in an attack on the United States
is traced to either, a full retaliatory response will follow. But if they wish
such relations as we had with China and Russia in the late Cold War, they are
on offer.

Then, we should pull our troops out of Korea, where they are hostages in
harm's way. If the South wishes to appease the North, let them run the risks
and assume the consequences.

As one reviews the ledgers of his foreign policy, Bush seems to have alienated
or antagonized just about everyone on earth, with precious little to compensate
us for our war losses. And if we are about to jettison his cowboy diplomacy,
perhaps it is time to look again at the successful policies Bush and the neocons
dismissed and deplore. For, unlike theirs, these policies never failed America.

What are they? The anti-interventionism of the Founding Fathers from Washington
to Wilson, and the conservative policy of containment and deterrence pursued
by Eisenhower and Reagan.

Both deserve a hearing in the politics of 2008 – one that neither McCain nor
Hillary will give them.

Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential
nomination and the Reform Partys candidate in 2000. He is also
a founder and editor of the new magazine, The
American Conservative. Now a commentator and columnist, he
served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist
of three national television shows, and is the author of seven books.

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